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EXCEPTIONS:
1. If the track you have has either dts Master Audio or dts High Resolution Audio then to MAKE A CONVERSION TO LOSSLESS FLAC you must have Arcsofts Total Media Theatre (TMT) installed (On your SYSTEM DRIVE i.e. C) or the best you can hope for with ffmpeg supplied with eac3to is the "core" legacy dts track. TMT is NO longer available for download (used to download a time limited full version of software) but since I'm a nice guy you can down load it here (this is the trail version for 30 days, after this you will have to buy it or do a frewsh install of your OS drive to use it again ...DO NOT ASK FOR CRACKED VERSIONS/KEYGENS etc):

2. If all you want is the audio tracks untouched, then you will require the following extentions for your output files: Dolby TrueHD (.thd), dts Master audio (.dtshd), dts High Resolution (.dtshd), Dolby Digital plus (.eac3) etc.
3. Use a bit of common sense ....these are provided as a GUIDE AND CAN BE MODIFIED TO SUITE A USERS NEEDS. Just because you don't see any arguement for audio in an example doesn't meen you can't add one i.e. If you have a container that has audio, video, chapters. subs etc you can use any and all of eac3to's features. Its quite a logical program.
4. THIS IS IMPORATNT - If you choose to use this method over the more advanced guide that uses Blu - Ray as an example then eac3to WILL ONLY CONVERT LOSSLESS tracks (TrueHD, dts MA & LPCM ONLY) automatically to FLAC format. ALL LOSSY tracks such as DD+ will be output in the format they were origionally encoded in. Theses can be run back through eac3to to be converted to what you like or not as the case may be.
5. If you want to create a dts (not core which libav can extract: ships with eac3to) but from say .eac3 track YOU MUST have the surecode DTS encoder installed on your machine, this can be baught from here:

The link for eac3to can be found at the top of this guide.
In addition to this you will require AnyDVD HD and for dts Master Audio decoding Arcsoft TMT (links provided above).

For this we will be using the command line interface but each of these commands can be writen into a .bat file and double clicked to engage. For today's tutorial we will be using the region B (UK) OLDBOY Blu Ray Disc (Tartan distributor).

Once you have loaded your disc and AnyDVD HD has done its magic then open a command prompt and navigate to where your eac3to folder is located on your hard drive. From here type the following command:

eac3to.exe G:

Followed by enter. Note that here G: represents my Blu ray drive so amend accordingly .....This will give you a list of "titles" that are available on the disc like in the following example:

For us we want the main movie, so the length, format etc tell us that this is title 1 (this is also a very good method to tell seamless branching titles apart ...each will be listed as a separate title and usually have a different duration ). To this end we now type:

eac3to.exe G: 1)

This will now give us a detailed overview of what is contained in title 1 as shown in the following still:

We can now see what numbers/tracks we need to extract, since this is a foreign language title we will need subtitles, the main video, main audio and the chapters. This can be achieved by using the numbering system employed by eac3to. For this title we want tracks 1:, 2:, 5:, 11:, 12:, 13:, & 14: (written in the same manner). So to extract these to a directory (alter to reflect your own structure) of my choosing we write:

If you make a mistake then don't worry eac3to will tell you that "this ********** conversion is not supported" as in the figure below:

If you get everything correct you will get the following:

Once you have finished you can then mux everything back together using the same technique as outlined in GUIDE2 (below). A couple of things to note:

1. eac3to now auto-corrects for the delay in any audio file that it decodes so you do not need to add this value anymore when muxing using mkvmerge. For example if yoou convert a dts Master Audio track to lossless flac then you are decoding the track firsts (into PCM) & then re-encoding it back into flac. On the other hand if you rip out the core legacy dts track from the dts MA track, eac3to doesn't have to decode it. Hence if the track has a delay (see eac3to log) you MUST add it in the delay section of MKVmerge (see below).
2. Channel mapping for Blu ray LPCM channels in now the default option so you no longer need the -Bluray handle.
3. Pulldown is now automatically removed by default when stripping the video and muxing into matroska so the -StripPulldown flag is no longer required. If you want to keep pulldown flags you can add the handle -KeepPulldown after the video portion of your command.
GUIDE 2: RIPPING 1080p BLU - RAY/HD-DVD USING HDBRStreamExtractor GUI FOR EAC3TO.I must stress before anybody assumes this is the "best" way to use eac3to, that it is not! The reason that this is included is for those of you who have command line phobias or do not have sufficient experience/time to learn. All the features that eac3to offers are ONLY available in the command line, this GUI uses the most common features and places them in a point & click interface. IF YOU WANT to get the MOST from the power that eac3to has to offer I STRONGLY suggest you master at least basic command line skills. That said, for those who can't or will not this will get you by. You can download the GUI from here:

Extract it & then place it in your eac3to folder (along with the config file too). On opening of the executable you will be presented with this screen:

Just like using the command line option you will need AnyDVD HD running & decripting the disc, now the first thing to do is define either the folder (folder icon on far right of "input") from which the movie files are stored (weather this be on your HD or direct from the BR disc) or the m2ts file(s) ("select input file(s)" icon on immediate right of "input" box) we are interested in turning into a shiny new mkv (for this demo we are using folders). We are doing this using the UK Trainspotting Blu-Ray direct from the BD drive. In ALL cases you will have to show eac3to to the location of the "\\BDMV\\STREAM\\" folder. In my example (pic below) you can see "F:\\BDMV\\STREAM\\" this is because my BD drive is located at F:

You will also need to specify a destination folder, my example is "D:\ rainspotting", one this is done hit "feature(s)" link (in blue) and let eac3to analyse the disc. This will then give you a list of m2ts (along with playlist mpls files) files with corresponding durations. Choose the one that is the most likely candidate for the movie i.e. usually the longest. In our case this is title 1 (equivalent in command to scripting eac3to.exe F: 1) to do a more in depth analysis). Double click this one and let eac3to do a deep analysis, following this you will be presented with a screen like this one (complete with all the streams within the main movie i.e. audio, video, subtitle tracks):

Now just like the command line we need to tell eac3to what we want to extract from the disc. We do this using check boxes under "stream(s)" to choose the orrect tracks & we decide how they are going to be processed by choosing what the extention of the output files are going to be from under the "Extract As" column. When you are happy hit the "Extract" button on the lower right hand pane and eac3to will do the magic. This like the command line should take approx 30mins - 1 hour depending on what you are ripping, your drive speed & how many conversions i.e. dts MA to flac conversions are taking place. See below:

Then you are done & need to now mux your new streams back together using MKVmerge (see Guide 4) or if you need subtitles sorting out then go to Guides 5 & 6.
GUIDE 3:USING "ANOTHER EAC3TO GUI" TO RIP BLU - RAY/HD-DVD FILES INTO LOVELY 1080P MKV'S.

For this you will need to download a copy of MikeEby's newest creation from here:

This is as the title suggests is Another eac3to GUI but this has a wee difference in as much as it will parse video/audio quite well to give you previews of what you are going to rip to mkv ...pretty good function. This software is very very new & needs a bit of work but it has lots of potential so without further distraction lets get on with taking a look at how it works. Mike has posted on here & I'm sure he would value your feedback on his software, suggestions etc (correct me If I'm wrong Mike?) but please guys & gals don't be too pushy. Writing software is a labour of love but its still pretty time consuming (Thanks).

You first need to install this software to your local drive, after you have done this you will get this screen asking you for the location of eac3to & a destination folder for your rips, as shown here:

Fill this out in a similar fashion to me above. Then click OK & you will be greeted with this lovely screen, which I think looks very clean:

Now you have to give it both the path to the streams (BDMV/STREAM/ for either on disc or on HDD) & to the destination, remember as with any eac3to usage AnyDVD HD must be running! Once you have done this click "Analyze" & in the lower left hand box the titles will appear with the appropriate file sizes, choose the largest and click on the arrow to move the selected m2ts file to the "Source Stream files" box. At this point you can use the video box to preview the video & audio. This feature is very handy for working out the episodes of TV series on BD:

Click either "Add Batch" followed by run all (add multiple jobs as you want, possibly all from HDD or if you have multiple BD drives, repeating the appropriate processes where needed) or click "Command line" followed by "Run Command". Both will result in the following command line being employed:

eac3to.exe "F:\\BDMV\\STREAM\\00004.m2ts" "D:\\HD-movie-folder\\MyMKVFile.mkv" (obviously this is specific to my title: Star Trek - The Voyage Home) but the general command is:

This type of command as some of you will be aware will cause eac3to to parse ALL streams in the container so what you end up with is a number of audio files (diff languages), a number of subtitle files (all for diff languages again), the video file (more than one with pic-in-pic), the chapter & log .txt files. Since eac3to by default converts lossless Audio to flac these will be done automatically but with legecy/lossy files such as ac2 or standard core dts, these will remain as is. This means if they have a delay associated with them (check eac3to -log.txt for details) it will have to be applied during the muxing stage in Guide 4. LOSSLESS Tracks (unless output in origional format i.e. .thd, .dtshd) that have been decoded & converted to anything else weather this be lossless flac or a legecy format such as DD (ac3), dts, aac etc DO NOT NEED A DELAY APPLYING.

Now all is taken care of, be aware that doing a mass conversion of everything does take a while longer than only converting the tracks you need ...so be prepared to take a time penalty. That said I'm sure this program will evolve quickly & I will update regularly as to the improvements.

GUIDE 4: USING MKMERGE TO RECOMBINE THE FILES WE JUST CREATED.

Start up mkvmerge and click on the add button to add the files that you want to mux into an mkv i.e. video, audio (as many as you want), subs (must be converted to srt or idx first...see GUIDE 5 & 6!).

Once you have done this to find out any delays that must be applied etc open up the eac3to log (open in previous screen), any audio delays will be displayed next to the relavent track. To apply this click on your track in mkvmerge and go to the format specific options and write it in under delay. If their is no delay in the log leave it your good to go. NOTE: With new versions of eac3to (v2.2 onwards) their is no need to apply a delay in mkvmerge with tracks that are DECODED by eac3to i.e. TrueHD to flac, but you still require the delay on tracks that are just demuxed i.e. AC3 to AC3.

If you want chapters then go to the global tab and enter your chapter file, this can also be edited by draging and dropping it in the window in the chapter editor:

Note that chapter files can be used with any title at your need ...they are essentially just text files and can be modded using a text editor i.e. notepad/wordpad etc to reflect any changes you want to make i.e. Add chapter names etc.
Set your output file and any other permiters that you want i.e. default track flags/names etc and press mux and you will get the following screen:

This shouldn't take too long and then you can delete all the files you do not want and you can play this file back in any directshow capable player as long as you have the relervent codecs installed, no more crap comercial players that will not let you play the discs that you have bought, no more down sampling audio and an infinate amount of tweaking to get the best possible picture if you should so choose

I would always make sure you use a good renderer i.e. Haali/EVR or VMR9 ...never use overlay or simular, this will make your new HD mkv look soft, flat and boaring.

You can use this method for HD-DVD also you just have to reflect the change in disc structure when using eac3to as per the example given, all else is the same. Happy encoding guys and girls.....hope this is helpful. Any Qs please post or PM me and I will do my best to help you out.
Cheers,
Jiff.

Open your desired subtitle file (.sup) and you will be presented with something like this:

Click on Auto-OCR and if you are lucky most of the work in identifying the subs will be done automatically but if your not (like my example here not to worry). Check "Automatically continue with next subtitle" next to the OCR button. Click on a letter in the top box and then type this in the box next to the "OK" button (the letter will appear on the left) and click "OK". The program will automatically move to the next letter and you should repeat this untill all for that subtitle are done. Next click "OCR" and another subtitle will pop up but this time some of the letters will be filled in this is becasue SupRip learns as you type each letter and its data base is updated each time you add a new letter. Keep going until you are complete ....I know what you are thinking but no you will not have to do every single one. For the average title you will need to do between 5-10% of them and the OCR function will do the rest.

Note you can at anytime click on any letter in the upper panal and change it (you may need to do this from time to time as sometimes SupRip does have minor problems with some simular letters and some punctuation) in the lower white box. This is pretty rare tho so don't worry about it.

When you ahve done click on the "SRT" tab and you will be pressented with the following:

You can now at a glance see if all your subs are correct and make sure that their times are appropriate. Leave the setting as they are and click on "SAVE" and give your file a memorable name. Note the extention wants to be .srt as shown in the following example (you don't have to write it!):

This will give you a small file that can be directly imported into mkvmerge and muxed into your final file. Their are a number of other subtitle creation programs available i.e. subtitle creator etc but I've found this to be the best and fastest and least frustrating. Enjoy.

GUIDE 7: RE_COMPRESSION OF 1080p MTERIAL TO 720p WITH MEDIUM AND HIGH QUALITY SETTINGS.

To do this you can miss out GUIDE 2 and progress strait here or you can do do GUIDE 2 and do this at a later stage it makes no differance.

First extract the x264 encoder to a folder of your choice and then open up graphedit. Choose graph, then insert filter, then under directshow choose the haali media splitter you will then get a new window asking for a file to split:

You may have to change file type to all files to see your mkv, select the video and then depending on what the fideo is encoded in i.e. AVC, VC-1 etc we need to choose the correct decoder. In the case of the example the file is in VC-1 so we need the "WMVideo DMO" filter so we add that. We are now done with filters and just have to connect the video out pin to the in0 pin (do this manually by draging the mouse between them...do not choose to render the pins automatically or your encode will not work):

save the graph under something memorable into your x264 directory.

NOTE IMPORTANT: YOU WILL REQUIRE A DIFFERENT FILTER FOR EACH FORMAT AND AS SUCH NEED ALL THE ONES THAT HD-DVD/BLU RAY SUPPORT. THE ABOVE FILTER "WMVideo decoder DMO" is ONLY for VC-1 (used by Warner & Universal alot). IF YOU HAVE AVC (typically Sony, Fox Paramount) YOU WILL NEED EITHER CoreAVC or ffdshow (Cyberlink decoders will not work). ffdshow is good for MPEG-2 material.

Next we need to create a avi script so open up notepad and type the following:

The 2 important things here are framecount (get this from your eac3to log) and fps (always 23.976 for film, may differ for TV again eac3to log at the top where it gives info on video streams).

BicubicResize is an older filter which has since been replaced by LancsozResize, Lancsoz4Resize and spline36Resize ....use these instread, you willl get much sharper results. The format is the same i.e. filtername(1280, 720)

Save this with the extention .avs just as you did for the eac3to .bat files, again in the same folder as x264. If you want to add other options here like Trim(0, 3000) to encode the first 2 mins make sure that each additional term is added after a fullstop i.e. after every set of brackets. There are many options that can be specified and I'll cover some more in the blu ray/advanced guide
Now we move to the final step, creating a .bat file for the encoder. For a goog quality set of settings use the following code:

Those two lines make a decent two pass x264 encode in just a few hours (~8-10). You have to obviously adjust the input/output files, and can do the same with the bitrate (9500 in our example) as well as any other option if you want. Save this as a .bat file (same directory as x264.exe again) and run it by double clicking.

Reencoding the video with these settings will probably take around a full day on an average dual core computer (you can just copy and paste these and change what you need same with the avi script tp prevent any situations arising with spelling mistakes etc....sounds silly but many have come unstuck ). Of course, a whole book could be written on the pro- and contra of various x264 settings.

This should leave you with 4 files in your x264 directory and a fith/sixth on completion depending on what settings you use:

Once you have finnished then go back to GUIDE 2 and remux your new re-encoded file with your audio .Note if you have already done step 2 previously and don't have the origional audio, subs etc you can just import the origional file and uncheck the origional full bitrate/size video but delays etc still have to be applied so i would recomend holding on to your log files.GUIDE 8: Re-encoding HD media using meGUI

This method uses MEGui to convert any DirectShow compatible video source to H246 (x264). With this guide you will be able to convert DVD, Blue-Ray, HD-DVD etc basically anything that can be played via the DirectShow interface. You will still need step 1 & 3 of first post (3 can be performed in MeGUI but not going to do it here, same priniple. Also m2ts/EVO can be directly brought into MeGUI but their is no way to join them so be warned and also the time to rip with eac3to is simular to just ripping ....nobody wants their Blu/HD drive working through out a re-encode).

Note: there are many sub tools that are loaded under MEGui. Those tools are downloaded automatically the first time you launch MEGui. In addition to these you will also need everything you would need to impliment the origional x264 encode above i.e. x264.exe, AVISynth, Graphedit and all the relevent codecs i.e. WMVideo DMO (VC-1), CoreAVC/Cyberlink h264 decoder (AVC) ffdshow or eqiverlent for MPEG-2.

Before you can get to using MeGUI you first need to set it up, go to options->settings and set up "main" as shown below, then go to the "program paths" and set up each of the program paths we are going to use i.e. x.264.exe, Mkvmerge etc ...you can set up all the paths if you want i.e. mencoder, faac etc but they are not required here.

Ok so now are almost ready to get started but first I've been playing with different resizing algs and sharpening filters and have set on a nice combination (thought your encodes looked good well wait till you see this ). You will need:

Etract both of these and then place the .dll in the AVISynth Plugin folder and you are done (UPDATE: Don't use asharp anymore ...not required, instaid use LancsozResize (see below)).

The first screen of MeGUI looks like this:

Go to "tools" then "AVISynth script creator" and you will get a window like this:

Drag and drop or open normally your mkv and you will be pressented with the folowing:

Once I select my Source mkv file in the AVISynth Script Creator screen I see a preview window. The preview window size can be changed by dragging the window edges. Bigger sources makes the window unwieldy so I would suggest you make it small enough so that you can see the MEGUI interface underneath. Leave the preview window open as we'll be modifying some elements on the preview screen. The Input DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) should be displayed 1.778 in the example. Directly below that is a checkbox for 'Clever (TM) anamorphic encoding', check this and in the opposite dropdown box choose "Resize to Achieve Mod 16". Below that you will see the resize options, you should enter them here i.e. 1280 x 720.

On the "filters tab" choose the spline36 resize filter (If not using asharp use Lancsoz or Lancsoz4 ...will give you just as good results put requires less processing power) and check noise filter, this will give you the sharpest resize with the least loss of detail. I would suggest you always leave "Minimal Noise" selected, even for 'clean' sources. For older source material, I would suggest you select "Little Noise". Anything beyond that can have a noticeable softening affect which you may find unpleasant. Experiment here to find what you see as acceptable. This setting can have a very beneficial effect on Bit Rate usage even when the noise isn't immediately obvious to you. If you suspect that you have an interlaced source then use the "analysis" button first.

The "EDIT tab" allows you to make any final modifications to your AVISynth script before saving it. For instance if you wanted to tweak some of the filter functions, resize it or add an additional filter, etc. We are going to add the "asharp" filter (Note: This step is not required if you are using Lancsoz), at the bottom choose "load dll" and load in the plugin from the avisynth/plugin directory you placed it in at the begining:

Now we add the modline as follows in the following screen (note that I have 20+ tests and (10,4) is the best quality that I have found by my eye ....think you will be pleasently suprized how good your new encodes luck now 1080p eat your heart out).

If you have no other modifications to enter, you can just click SAVE in the bottom right corner of the AviSynth Script Creator window (save to the same directory as your mkv ...for ease). Next you need to supply the x264 encoder with a video profile so across from this click "config". You will be pressented with the following:

Your screen wants to look like mine, obviously change bitrate if you would like. Also check "turbo". Next we move to the ZONES TAB
This tab allows you to specify custom bitrate zones much like MPEG-2 encoders used. Its not required here since the source should be very 'clean' being HD. Just be aware that if you have a problem scene that seems to be getting excessive macroblocking you can tweak that 'zone' here.

The RC and ME Tab has four subsections - Rate Control, M.E., Misc, and Quant Options. These sections contains the guts of the H264 codec. These settings also have a huge impact on the speed that your PC will encode your output. The items of interest are highlighted.

Rate Control section
Leave the Rate Control section at the defaults.

M.E. Section
Set your M.E. Algorithm to a minimum of Hexagon. If you have the CPU power I would suggest you set it on Multi-Hex.

Subpixel Refinement:
I would not suggest you go any higher than '6 - RDO (Slow)'. RDO Level 2 is EXTREMELY slow for very little gain. 6 - RDO is required to use 'RDO for B-Frames' on the Advanced Tab. I would suggest you select 6 - RDO.

MISC Section
Set your Keyframe interval to 10 times your output video's framerate. If your encoding video that is 23.976 frames per second, then set the Keyframe Interval to 240. If you wer encoding video at 29.97 fps, then set your keyframe interval to 300.
For the Min GOP size, set this to the rounded value of your framerate (ex: for 23.976 framerate video set it to 24).

Quant Options
Trellis: Set this to none ... causes slight speed increase with macroblacks but a spead penalty with other operations.
Number of Reference Frames: Set this to from 5 to 8. This value can have a big impact on your processing time. The lower the number the faster the encode. The higher the number the slower the encode, but the better the quality. Note that values over 5 give marginal improvements. You can go as high as 16. Do not set this value lower than 3.

I have included a good set of options for all here ....this will give you a good looking encode without taking days (much experiemntation went into finding these so I would suggest these as a good referance but please feel free to have a play ):

For the "advanced" tab use the following:

If you want you can enable some macroblock options but this will slow your encode and as long as the bit rate is not too low you shouldn't really need them. If you detect macroblocking in your encode and decide to use them (unlikely) use all of them to get real benafit.

If you want to save these settings in a new profile rather than overwriting one of the default profiles then click the 'New' button and give your profile a new name. Otherwise, just click the 'Update' button and then click OK.

This will put you back to the Main MEGUI page. At this point, you can begin encoding your video if you like.

Remember your output file should be set to mkv (very limited with mp4) and if you haven't checked "autostart queue" in the setting you will have to go to the "Queue" tab and start it manually. If all goes well you will get a screen like this:

Once its completed then you need to either go to "tools"->"muxer" to create your full mkv or use GUIDE 2 (More options with mkvmerge) to complete. Happy encoding guys and girls and remember any Qs and I'm more than happy to help.
Cheers,
Jiff.

pjavan, I've already asked and pleaded and begged on my friggin' knees for something like that to appear, and it didn't help. Nope, for right now, this is just about as easy as it gets--ESPECIALLY if you want to re-encode to divx (why again???). Re-encoding is not nearly as straightforward and simple as it sounds--in fact, it's by far the most complex and time-consuming step of the process. Just ripping out the movie and main soundtrack can be as easy as a few steps and a couple hours (and reduce a 45GB BR down to a 20GB movie). Add in re-encoding and it takes complex command lines with infinite subjective options, and hours can turn to days--for a single movie... And then once you upgrade your system, you will regret compressing all that HiDef material into something comparable to upconverted SD DVD... But hey, that's just my $.02.

Jiff, great guide. Just wanted to throw something out there. I know you might like the finite control you get by specifying individual evo/m2ts files and full paths, but the "chapter" referencing that pclausen introduced me to in that "other thread" has in actuality been much less confusing for me and a heck of a lot easier to work with.

I tried loading a m2ts file into GraphEdit, and it shows up as using ffdshow for the video decoder, just the same as my mkv files. Moreover, I just used the eac3to/mkvmerge method to demux/remux Undeworld Evolution straight from BluRay, and THAT mkv file plays buttery smooth in MPC-HC! CPU Util seems to be down in the 20-30% range, so hw-decode appears to be working. Why not for my other 3 mkv's???

Hi gfoltz,
Underworld Evolution is mpeg-2 so its very easy for your computer to decode (most can use HA but even then mpeg 2 is very easy to decode in software). For VC-1 you will get HA from the WMVideo DMO decoder so they should not be a problem either. With regard to AVC have you got cyberlink powerDVD version 7 Ultra? The h264 codec supplied with this supports HA and can be used outside the player with other directshow players (not version 8 tho...thats locked!). Import it into mpc external filter list under options and set the merit to prefer. Once you have done that you need to disable ffshows decoding so open up the ffshow video tweak menu and go to codecs then next to avc choose from the dropdown box "do not use". That should sort you out....If you have any trouble post a screen of mpc playing with the filter list showing (right click and go down to filters).

Quote:

you will regret compressing all that HiDef material into something comparable to upconverted SD DVD

A fair bit better than that me thinks.....I'm also working with other algorithms to greatly increase output quality and making some really good ground so stay tuned (I've been able to remove all the artifacts created using bicubic (even tho they are few and far between) and sharpen the image emmensly ).

Quote:

Jiff, great guide. Just wanted to throw something out there. I know you might like the finite control you get by specifying individual evo/m2ts files and full paths, but the "chapter" referencing that pclausen introduced me to in that "other thread" has in actuality been much less confusing for me and a heck of a lot easier to work with.

Already gave my $.02 to pjavan, so you'll have to settle for tuppence...

I'm going to cover all of this in my Blu guide.....The first was intended as a good starting point for people with no experience so they can just copy and paste and change a few things like paths/bitrates etc. I will cover how to get stream info, specifically encode certain tracks, force framerates etc for those who like to play around and get a set up wich is ideal for them. Tuppence! .....well atleast its more than a pittance

So seriously. Is there no easier way to do this with some software that can be purchased out there? I'm willing to spend the money on something to make life a bit easier....

I'm looking for a method to convert blu-ray to divx for my htpc.

In a word NO! ....if their was do you think we would all be here doing this stuff, it works and works well but be under no illusions its still a pain the fudge shoot
Just out of interest why divx? ...its really outdated compared to high profile AVC.
Cheers,
Jiff.

I did the graphedit thing, where I dragged the arrow to the DMVideo in. Saved it to my 'x264' directory and when I click the .bat to do the encode, the command prompt box just pops up and goes away instantly.

Could there be an issue with where my source mkv files are in relation to graphedit?

Or maybe its because golden compass, the movie i am trying to encode, is a streamless movie? On the blu ray disk, there are like about 15 .m2ts files, but i found that 00008.m2ts was the one with the main movie, so i just picked that as my only stream when i ripped it out with eac3to.

Argh, oh well, i think i'll work on the case this weekend. I'm building a custom acrylic for this htpc build.

In a word NO! ....if their was do you think we would all be here doing this stuff, it works and works well but be under no illusions its still a pain the fudge shoot
Just out of interest why divx? ...its really outdated compared to high profile AVC.
Cheers,
Jiff.

I guess DIVX because of how widely its used. Not really even sure what high profile AVC is. So far, I'm just using DVD decrypter for my standard DVDs to get them on my HTPC. I have a ton of storage (4 TB), but I want to start to rip my blu ray/hd movies and I know I'll eat through that in no time.

By the way, thanks for the write up. Anytime someone takes the time like you did, it really contributes more than you can imagine.

Hi harryzhong,
When x264 does this it means that their is a problem with communication between the files this can be caused by an inaccuracy in one of the scripts or a program failing to referance a script properly.

1. It is not your choice of m2ts file....this wouldn't make a differance, x264 would just encode what was in the origional file.
2. As long as the position of your mkv file had not moved since the time when you built your graph (and your ouput name is differant if to go to same directory) then this shouldn't be a problem either.
3. Notice that everything is on E:\\ .....is this your system harddrive? If not its possible that when the avi script calls the filter graph it is unable to find graphedit. Also what drive is AVISynth installed on?
4. I did notice on your last post that in your .avi script your filter graph was referanced as .grf and not .GRF (probably nothing but its these little things that get people unstuck)

Suggestions would be to make sure that all programs are on your system drive. If still no luck I would delete all your scripts (leave your mkv) and create a seperate directory on E:\\ for x264 ....then I would remake the scripts using copy and paste of the above and then just changing "frames" in the avs script and the referance for the .avs scripts/output.mkv in the .bat file. Recreate the graphedit script and have another shot. This should only take you ten mins ....let me know how you get on, If no joy post me screens of all your scripts/graphs and dircetorys and I'll have a look and see if I cant sort you out. I could even write the example scripts for you if your really stuck.
Cheers,
Jiff.

This is great, thanks Jiff. Is there any way to automate this process?

Yes it can be done using a single .bat file but its quite complicated and people using this are not so use to working with .bat files so I chose to leave it out. I can include it in my advanced guide if you would like?

Quote:

By the way, thanks for the write up. Anytime someone takes the time like you did, it really contributes more than you can imagine.

No worries mate...know how difficult it is to learn this stuff without anyhelp so my pleasure. High profile AVC is an extention of the mpeg4 profile with highly advanced referancing schemes and is extreamly efficient but very CPU intensive to decode (Its used on most Blu rays but a ridiculous bitrates).

Quote:

Nice writeup, but what about Sonic, Nero and Surcode...?

To come ....will not include Nero because the libav decoder can do everything just as well and doesn't apply dialogenormalization (actually removes it) ot surcode becasue newest versions of eac3 can extract core and I exlusily use flac anyway.
Cheers,
Jiff.

Hi harryzhong,
When x264 does this it means that their is a problem with communication between the files this can be caused by an inaccuracy in one of the scripts or a program failing to referance a script properly.

1. It is not your choice of m2ts file....this wouldn't make a differance, x264 would just encode what was in the origional file.
2. As long as the position of your mkv file had not moved since the time when you built your graph (and your ouput name is differant if to go to same directory) then this shouldn't be a problem either.
3. Notice that everything is on E:\\ .....is this your system harddrive? If not its possible that when the avi script calls the filter graph it is unable to find graphedit. Also what drive is AVISynth installed on?
4. I did notice on your last post that in your .avi script your filter graph was referanced as .grf and not .GRF (probably nothing but its these little things that get people unstuck)

Suggestions would be to make sure that all programs are on your system drive. If still no luck I would delete all your scripts (leave your mkv) and create a seperate directory on E:\\ for x264 ....then I would remake the scripts using copy and paste of the above and then just changing "frames" in the avi script and the referance for the .avi scripts/output.mkv in the .bat file. Recreate the graphedit script and have another shot. This should only take you ten mins ....let me know how you get on, If no joy post me screens of all your scripts/graphs and dircetorys and I'll have a look and see if I cant sort you out. I could even write the example scripts for you if your really stuck.
Cheers,
Jiff.

hmmm. I have 1 drive in the HTPC right now, but i have a 20gig partition with vista installed on it and other programs. Now that you mention it. I may have avisynth installed on that partition and not the other big data partition.

I'll move everything to the E: partition and try it again. Thanks for the tip on the .grf vs. .GRF too.

To come ....will not include Nero because the libav decoder can do everything just as well and doesn't apply dialogenormalization (actually removes it) ot surcode becasue newest versions of eac3 can extract core and I exlusily use flac anyway.
Cheers,
Jiff.

I'd use this to extract the highest quality audio from the disc, be it TrueHD, DD+, DTS-MA HD, or PCM and encode to .flac losslessly (aside from any normalization removing, which is fine by me). You're saying eac3to + libav can do this poifectly without any other codecs?

Batch automation instructions would be great. I have some limited bat programming ability. The roadblock I would anticipate here would be the variable number of evo/m2ts files. Would be great if there was a single command (eg. "rip.bat") that was able to analyze disc structure, determine BD/HD, figure out which files were the actual movies, rip to a location on the HDD corresponding to the movie name, delete unnecessary audio tracks and remux. It's definitely possible, but I think would require more than an MS-DOS batch file.

'd use this to extract the highest quality audio from the disc, be it TrueHD, DD+, DTS-MA HD, or PCM and encode to .flac losslessly (aside from any normalization removing, which is fine by me). You're saying eac3to + libav can do this poifectly without any other codecs?

Yes libav can do all Dolby formats with great results and also dts legacy core extraction ....the only exception to using libav is dts MA/HD you still require the sonic decoder to decode these and create a flac file. Surecode is required if you want to create a dts legacy file from any other format type but its quite expensive and like I said I use flac exclusivly (ac3 too for PS3 but HTPC). I could include some extra options for those that are intrested ....its not so difficult to get eac3to to do these types of encodes as long as the software is installed, it just requires altering the file name.

Quote:

Batch automation instructions would be great. I have some limited bat programming ability. The roadblock I would anticipate here would be the variable number of evo/m2ts files. Would be great if there was a single command (eg. "rip.bat") that was able to analyze disc structure, determine BD/HD, figure out which files were the actual movies, rip to a location on the HDD corresponding to the movie name, delete unnecessary audio tracks and remux. It's definitely possible, but I think would require more than an MS-DOS batch file.

eac3to will do much of this but not all i.e. removing unwanted audio, muxing but its certainly possible to get it to analyse the disc and rip to a directory in a single step (the problems come with differing disc structure i.e. different audio referances, number of video streams etc). To get a completely automated system you would have to use some higher level programing (possible but not easy) ....I'll look into it.
Cheers,
Jiff.

Can I use the above method to transcode 1080i .TS (tv caps) w/ DD to MKV?

Also what compression ratio should I expect going from MPEG2->AVC in MKV w/o any noticeable loss in quality.

Yes you can but their are a number of problems that you would have to overcome first (lines added to avi script mainly).....you would need to de-interlace the stream, workout the exact fps, number of frames (don't think that eac3to supports TS but maby....You could use Tsmuxer to first convert to m2ts and also get no of frames). I would say greater than 50% compression going from mpeg 2 to AVC. If I get time this weekend I'll write a AVS script that includes de-interlasing.
Cheers,
jiff.

Whala... double click the TS file to play it in any player (or load it into any commercial software that supports HD... I like the idea of .TS file support in pretty much all HD apps. MKV is hit or miss.

I dont believe in trying to re-encode an already highly compressed blu-ray movie... just remuxing to TS for perfect compatibility with all commercial HD software.